Time management tips for spring cleaning free up more time to celebrate the season! Five proven strategies energize you as you rid your space of clutter. Clear out stale thinking and sail through your work in a sunnier frame of mind.

Tailor your cleaning environment to your preferences, and use these 5 following strategies to set your pace.

5 Time Proven Spring Cleaning Strategies

1. Create a template.

Templates can be simple and quite straightforward. List what you’d like to accomplish in spring cleaning according to their priority. Note what supplies you’ll need. Then group what you need to purchase according to store to streamline your shopping. Record good ideas as you go along, and file the template where you can pull it up easily for next time.

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For many entrepreneurial women with children at home, your working time is limited. Given this restriction, how do you balance the children, household tasks and work to keep your business growing?

One thing I know from having three children and a business is that it is a Catch-22. It’s hard to bring in more clients and more money when you don’t have the support. You need some type of child care. Yet it’s hard to afford childcare when you don’t have more clients and money coming in, right?

What I’ve experienced in my own life is that I need a single focus. What I mean is – when I’m with my clients they have to be my focus and when I’m with my children my attention must be with them. Any time you do anything less, you’re cheating one or the other which is never a good feeling or very productive.

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Time-saving tools are always helpful, and the simpler they are, the better they are.  That’s why I was intrigued to read about this free Chrome extension for jotting quick notes.

It’s called Google Keep and it’s very easy to install and use.  Once set-up, this  time-saving tool can be available on your android phone, as well as your PC or your Mac.  (It’s not yet available for the iPad, but it sounds like that is being worked on, too.

Time-Saving and Simple

Google Keep serves a function similar to Evernote and many of the other notepad applications that are available for computers and mobile devices.  Like those other apps, it will save and sync your notes across devices.

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Springtime.  Can you feel it?  The air softens as blossoms burst open and green returns to the once-frozen earth.  Vernal pools are alive with activity as windows are opened and thoughts turn to gardens, cookouts, and outdoor chores and recreation.  (And for our friends in the southern hemisphere, they’ll be experiencing this in a few months, while we batten down the hatches for the coming winter!)

Springtime and Your Garden of Time

As we move from the world of winter into springtime, there are huge changes in how we spend our time.  Think about the simple act of getting yourself out of the house in the morning.  In February, depending on where you live, that could entail adding layers of clothes, boots, scarves, mittens, etc.  Maybe at times it even means shoveling a path from your door to your car!

How about this morning?  Think of all the time you save as you step out the door into the soft springtime air.  What do you do with that time?

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Goal-setting.  What do you think of when you hear those words?  Is goal-setting something that you find to be a useful tool in your daily life?  Does it scare you?

Pay attention to how your body  feels when you think about goal setting.

Does the energy feel expansive or constricting?  What words come to mind?

Goal-Setting and Flexibility:  The Expansive Perspective

For many, goal-setting has the feel of a choice that narrows options and imposes limits.  But I take a very different view.

To step into a nautical framework for a second, I think of goal-setting as similar to deciding what harbor you’re heading for.  Depending on the winds and ocean currents, your actual path may vary considerably.  But your goal is unvarying; it is always that harbor, whatever adjustments you may need to make to get yourself there.

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At some point, you may find you’re not as productive as you want to be, or you’re spinning your wheels because you’re procrastinating or going task to task and not completing anything. If you find you’re in this situation, you need to find an accountability partner. If you find you struggle to find the right person or if you don’t feel comfortable sharing your goals and to-do lists with just anyone, you need to consider using your Virtual Assistant as your accountability partner.

An accountability partner will sit down with you and help you decide which tasks are important and which ones need to be tossed out or set aside for a later date. Once you’ve set your goals and you’ve decided your Virtual Assistant will be your accountability partner, it’s time to get started. You’ll want to decide if you’re going to get together daily or weekly for your accountability meetings and then add them to your Google Calendar.

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The official “day” may have passed, but there’s still soooooo much we as human beings can do to protect and respect our earth. Recycle, reuse, re-purpose…and in the spirit of our Operation Business Cleanout, we can put the kibosh on junk mail.

One thing that tends to irk me is the onslaught of junk mail that seems to get worse every year.

Halt Paper Junk

Electronic junk mail is an inconvenience, and various software can prevent it; but the paper junk mail that fills your mailbox is another matter. It is not just an inconvenience; many are concerned about the negative effects on the environment that so much junk mail may produce. Of course, trees are required in massive numbers to produce the enormous volume of junk mail (approximately 41 pounds or 1.5 trees per household per year) that takes up so much space in your mailbox and home.

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Disconnect.me is a Chrome extension that my VA read about this weekend and thought might be helpful to share with readers here.

I took a look and agreed, so here’s a little information about Disconnect.me – and you can read a full review on Mashable, if you’d like.

Disconnect.me:  What it does

Hundreds of websites track your searching and surfing data on-line.  For businesses, this can provide very helpful information; but for those who are also concerned about their privacy, it can feel like an invasion.  Disconnect.me allows you to have a hand in deciding how your data is tracked on-line.

Before we look at how Disconnect.me works, however, here’s a look at how many tracking sites are checking your data when you visit a site like MSNBC.com.

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Spring cleaning can be many things to many people.  The energy that you bring to it has a profound effect on how it feels to you.

Spring Cleaning:  How Do You See It?

For some, spring cleaning is one of those  energizing seasonal rituals that opens up possibilities.  As you let in sunshine and fresh air, and clear out debris and clutter, you let go of an old season and make room for the new!  You are taking charge of this transition … and celebrating it!

Approached as a chore, however, spring cleaning tasks are likely to feel like … well … chores.  And if you add in the fact that you have limited time and energy to devote to decluttering and spring cleaning, you can start feeling overwhelmed by the whole process.

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Time choices are the building blocks of each and every day.  From the smallest to the largest, your time choices define your experience of your time … and of your life.

Yet, how often are these choices made unconsciously – based on old scripts or old habits?  How often are your productive time choices lost in the shuffle of the everyday bustle of life?

There’s a science to learning to make helpful time choices … so let’s explore!

Time Choices:  What’s Your Repertoire?

We all make hundreds of time choices in the course of a day.  Knowing how and why you make these choices is very empowering and ultimately offers a path to greater productivity, enhanced satisfaction, and finding more time.

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